fingers crossed

One thing I’m thankful for is that we still have our little monkey in full-time daycare (at least until the end of this month). This means if I get up and help get her out the door, my husband drops her off and I can rest for most of the day. But yesterday I got this call from her daycare providers saying she had a low grade fever and was acting tired and perhaps might be coming down with something. They didn’t think I needed to come get her, but they wanted to let me know what was happening so I could be prepared to get her if she got worse. Being at home I felt guilty, and thought to myself, “if she needs to rest and I’m home, I should pick her up”. It was tough to get out of bed and bring her home but she actually was pretty mellow and took a long nap which allowed me to do the same.

Then, lo and behold, I actually slept last night without having to take medication through the night (except my friend Mr. Gaviscon). I am attributing this new feeling of improvement to having made my grandmother’s homemade chicken soup yesterday… she calls it “Jewish penicillin”, and I think she’s on to something.

Maybe I’m going to kick this nasty illness after all and have some enjoyable relaxation time before baby arrives? Keeping my fingers crossed.

nightmare mornings

All summer long, my little toddler hopped out of bed and ran to my bedroom no later than 7am. She was always bright-eyed and perky in the morning, feeling well-rested and energized. Then, I went back to work and she started daycare this week at a new facility. It’s wonderful. She loves it (even cried a few times when I came to take her home). The staff are amazing. But she’s in a room for 3-5 year olds, and she’s not turning 3 for a few more months. With this older cohort, naps are shorter, and the days are very stimulating. The result, she naps less, plays harder and is totally exhausted by the end of the day.

For the last two mornings, she has been totally unwilling to get out of bed. One morning involved a heavy screaming fit amid declarations that it was still ‘sleepy time’. Ordinarily, I would simply let her cry or sleep until she was ready to get up. But both my husband and I have to get to work on time. This means we had to physically pull her out of bed, get her out of her P.J.’s and dressed, all the while trying to be gentle and understanding while she kicked, hollered and tried desperately to climb back into bed. I have NEVER felt so guilty in my LIFE!!

This morning was a bit better, but she still insisted, “I haven’t had enough time in my bunk bed, Mom!”. Thankfully, a “wake-up” story in bed was all she needed to convince her to voluntarily emerge from her cozy bed at 6:30am. Poor kid!

Her daycare workers have said that she’s been practically falling asleep during lunch because she’s so wiped out.

Please tell me this is just an initial adjustment period? She’s just SO tired. It’s hard to watch.

plugged in

There’s this totally luddite part of me that wants to run away and live in the woods in an “off the grid” kind of hermit style (you know, like Thoreau or something). But then there are days like today when I can only properly function when everyone’s plugged in to something. You see, today I’m helping out my neighbour again with the fact that the daycare (where we both send our kids) is closed due to illness. This means I am looking after her two beautiful children (ages 4 and 5) for the whole day. They are fabulous kids. We spent the morning going for a walk in the forest and then making some arts and crafts projects with the stuff we found on our walk. Later, we played outside in the back yard and the kids ran around a bit. It was a busy time and gave me a glimpse into the life of my sister who has three kids who are each 18 months apart–she’s kind of my hero after today. Even with really great kids, it’s a lot to manage and meet the needs of all of them. Kids are demanding. I’m a teacher, I should know this, but I am also in a different role at home when one of the kids is my own and the other two are friends. Not to mention the fighting that goes on between the kids because they each want to follow their own will!

So now it’s nap time for my little one and the other two kids, although too old for a nap, are each in a different TV room in my house watching cartoons, while I’m enjoying the peace and getting my internet fix. It’s times like these that I thank my lucky stars for technology and the fact that it gives us all some down time when we need it most. Is that so terrible?

Working Mom

Going back to work was as good and as bad as I expected. I rediscovered the fact that I love my job and so that was pretty great. But, man, I was tired. Getting up at 5:30 to get myself and my one-year-old girl out the door in time to drop her at daycare and get to work on time.

Maya had a difficult first few days at daycare. As I had mentioned before, we chose a small daycare at the home of a friend of mine. My husband and I chose this over a bigger daycare in the same building where I work as a teacher. I knew the people running the programs at both places and they all seemed more than competent, but I just felt overwhelmingly (and my husband agreed) that it was better for Maya to be at a house with fewer kids, than in a larger, more institutional setting (even if the larger place was in the same building as my school).  Plus, the daycare at my friend’s house is close to our house (a 5 minute drive) which meant that Maya would not have to spend an extra hour each day commuting in the car with me.

So much thought and deliberation went into my decision to choose the daycare that we did. Nevertheless, I found I was totally second guessing our decision at the last minute, and kind of panicking about whether we’d made the right choice. Now, I am feeling much much better about our decision because, after about three days of mega-crying, Maya started really enjoying daycare. She bonded with my friend who runs the program, she naps on her usual schedule, and interacts happily with all the other kids. She still cries when I drop her off but I’m told it stops shortly after I leave. That said, those first few days were rough on both of us and I cried in the car a few times on my way to work. It was really hard to pick up Maya all red-eyed and exhausted from those first trying days. Thankfully, it worked out for the best. I don’t know what I’d have done if it didn’t because the waiting lists for daycares accepting kids in Maya’s age group are long. It would have been hard to find anything else.

The holidays were a nice reprieve after three weeks of work and we’ve spent loads of quality time together as a family over the past two weeks. In two days, we’re back the grind and it’ll be months before we have a break again. I am not looking forward to expending the energy that’s required of me for the next while (it’s going to be exhausting). But, thankfully, I have a supportive husband, and a great job (with a flexible employer) and all these things make this adjustment period easier to handle. So, here we go…

Daycare Decision

I can’t believe it but I already have to make decisions about Maya’s daycare situation and she’s not even six months old. I’m not going back to work until she’s a year old, but childcare for kids under the age of two is hard to come by in my city, so you have to plan ahead. I thought I had this all figured out because there’s a daycare in the building where I work and it’s a good one, although it’s expensive. Because I work in the building, they’re giving me priority, which means I’m pretty much guaranteed a spot. I’m lucky to have a place there, as they generally have an 18 month waiting list. My work is about a half-hour drive from our house, so Maya would have to commute with me every morning, but she seems to travel well in the car. I was resolved to put Maya in this daycare facility because she’d be in the same building as me, their hours are also perfect for me, and I know some of the daycare workers–they’re really great people. 

Then, one afternoon with some friends changed everything… I went to visit with some friends from University. All of them have kids and the woman who was hosting us has just decided to open a daycare in her home. She lives less than 5 minutes from my house. She happens to have one opening for a 12-month-old in December, which is when I’ll be going back to work. She’s totally certified by the government, and her little 18-month-old boy, who is very good natured, would also be there. This woman has a gorgeous facility with two big outside areas, a playhouse, an arts & crafts area, and she wants to implement a program with the little ones that’s much more appealing to me than the larger institutional daycare that I’d be putting Maya in if I took her to my workplace. She wants to take the children outdoors as much as possible. She’ll feed them healthy, organic food. She wants to foster creative play. She’s a very warm and caring individual. Her daycare setting would also be smaller, likely not more than 6 kids, whereas the larger daycare in the city would include at least 12 little ones.

So, now I have to decide: have Maya in the same building with me everyday in the larger daycare facility, or put her in this smaller daycare with someone I know who is close to home and who implements a program that fits with my own beliefs. Oh, and the smaller daycare is almost $300 cheaper per month. Hmm… sounds like I’m already leaning towards the smaller place. What would you do?